Surveillance anxiety and is my webcam watching me?

To all except one participant, the surveillance system proved to be a cause of annoyance, concern, anxiety, and even anger. However, surveillance did not cause mental health issues comparable in severity to depression or alcoholism, when measured with a standardized scale. Nevertheless, one household dropped out of the study at six months, citing that the breach of privacy and anonymity had grown unbearable.

Will there be a breaking point, at which time society responds to the extent of surveillance (including all federal, corporate, or third party snoops) and demands a right to privacy? Or will it slowly normalize, making the desire for privacy gradually obsolete?

I think most people tacitly realize that information privacy is dead. No one wants to be physically watched within their own homes, but beyond that, I don't think anything's assumed to be sacred anymore.

The thought of someone I know monitoring me is deeply disturbing to me, but as just another piece of data in the mounds of data being compiled - I'm not that concerned. I'm hoping all this data compilation will lead to some form of Asimovian psychohistory.

As much as I detest what's happened with the NSA, it reminds me we're one step closer to society imploding on itself and being reborn thereafter. I predict this (the implosion, anyway) will happen within 10 - 15 years.

As much as I detest what's happened with the NSA, it reminds me we're one step closer to society imploding on itself and being reborn thereafter. I predict this (the implosion, anyway) will happen within 10 - 15 years.

I used to have a job where there was a camera directly on me for the entirety of every shift. (I cashiered at an automated car wash.) It was pretty fucking annoying. The manager would apparently review the tapes from time to time and give us little bits of "advice" (fuck that), plus she'd advise not to do things that were perfectly legitimate and normal parts of working because they could be mistaken for misbehavior by someone watching what the camera had recorded.

Obviously it's possible to work under those conditions without a passive element like a camera stopping you, but the psychological effect got grating after a while. It's not like I was worried about anyone seeing anything I did on a day-to-day basis. (I sat in a shack running a cash register and then walked out to pre-wash cars with a pressurized hose, because apparently that was necessary.) It was just the Panopticon effect of knowing someone might be watching you but not knowing whether, who, or why. That in itself was an irritant. I couldn't say exactly why, but it was.

Honestly the Snowden thing did make me start hesitating a little when posting things on Facebook, writing emails, etc.--not because I was writing anything incriminating or thought someone was reading it, but because the soothing protective psychological shield of "no one would bother trying to spy on me" really was removed. Ironically that's about all we've heard on the matter from Obama and co. since then--"no one is interested in your phone calls with your mother"--but it's a particularly failed attempt at deflecting outrage because apparently, at the very least, the government very much does want to know when I call my mother and keep track of that information. So something 'obvious' that used to be a paranoia-dissipator no longer works that way.

I went to a presentation earlier this year on the use of Cybernetics in Allende's administration. I haven't done much in the way of my own research, but it was framed as use of surveillance in a socialist attempt to meet workers' needs efficiently. According to the presentation, the lack of transparency caused distrust and resentment among the workers, but I suspect that is the natural reaction to being monitored- be it benevolent or not.